The Diary of William Shakespeare, Gentleman Read Online Free PDF Page A

bed, lapped by the mattress feathers, and dreamt of London town and reciting the play’s words in a tavern forecourt, with my grand friend, the actor Ned.
    The players left early the next day, allowing them to get to the next village in time for mid-morning dinner, and a performance that afternoon. A crowd of footloose apprentices and tavern wenches, as well as Ned’s family and I, waved them off. Their cart was loaded with chests, which I supposed held costumes. The players sat upon the chests, except he who had played Chorus and held the reins. They were still in costume: Julius Caesar with bloodied toga and laurel wreath; Mark Antony, noble and sad. But now it was Ned who wore Livia’s skirts. As I watched, Caesar nudged him and ordered, ‘Smile.’
    Ned’s lips curved obediently, though tears rolled down his cheeks. Behind me I heard his mother sob. But mothers always cry when their sons go to make their fortunes.
    I waved and yelled, ‘Hurrah for Ned!’
    But Ned looked straight ahead and not at me, as if already seeing what lay before him. Even when I ran tothe cart and held up the poem I had written for him, he took it but did not meet my eyes, nor did he look back as the cart rumbled down the road.
    And all I could think was, if only they had chosen me.
    Today’s dinner’s first course was roast kid with sauce; minced mutton shapes; a pie of sparrows; beef collops with marrow bone; a tart of apples and the sparrow brains; medlar jelly; quinces preserved in cider, which again I feel did not agree with me.
    My waters clear, but bowels unsteady. I fear the upset will give me bad dreams, and I will dream of Ned.

Tuesday, 13th October 1615
    Today the tooth surgeon did come and pull my wife’s bad tooth. He says there are two more to pull, but my foolish wife will have none of it, as they are at the front.
    â€˜â€™Twill make me a toothless crone,’ she said.
    I did a husband’s duty, lifted her hand, kissed it. ‘Thou may be toothless, but a crone, never.’
    Nor did I lie. Was it a lie when I cried out that my brother had murdered me when
     I played the ghost of King Hamlet? Did I lie when as Prince Harry I led the army to
     victory at Agincourt? ‘ Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, or
     close the walls up with our English dead! ’ Though in truth, my Prologue was
     better than my Prince Harry. My Prologue left the audience agape, and could cause a
     man making for the privy to halt his steps. The audience cheered me for my Prince
     Harry, but it is silence the actor most desires, when you have carried the watchers
     to a land so far beyond their lice bites or their hunger that it takes them
     heartbeats to return.
    The squire’s son has come to the smithy again. The smith will be wondering at this horse that loses so many shoes. But I knew Bess was not there, for my wife had told me that the girl was going on the carter’s dray to layin a store of stockfish for the winter, and my wife had given her sixpence to buy our store too. Poor Bertram. No kisses, and an hour’s discourse with the smith instead, though at least they could talk horses.
    I had no conversation at dinner today but with Judith, who reproached me for not having found her a husband, as if husbands are to be discovered under gooseberry bushes.
    My fortune came too late to wed Judith young, and, as she grows in years, her nose grows too. I would not say she is bad-featured, but with all a father’s partiality I cannot say there is much in her to love, she being spoilt as her mother’s youngest. Nor is her estate an easy one, for while she is a gentleman’s daughter, I am newly so, which prevents her marrying high, unless she catches some lordling’s eye. And marrying low would sully our reputation.
    â€˜Take me to London and to court then, Father,’ she pouted.
    I sighed and cracked a walnut between my fingers, my hands still strong. How